Setting the Ice on Fire
	With their power, grace and artistry, Japan's women figure skaters are a daunting force that could help revitalize the troubled sport
	By Hannah Beech

	JAMIE MCDONALD / GETTY IMAGES ENTERTAINER: National champ Suguri combines her trademark dramatic flair with technical prowess

Posted Monday, February 6, 2006; 20:00 HKT
The sticky midsummer heat of a mountain Hamlet wasn't where you would expect to find the future of Japanese figure skating. But the 100 or so kids who gathered in 1994 at the inaugural Japan Skating Federation (JSF) New Talents Scout Camp in Nagano prefecture were the handpicked products of a program that could be dubbed Project Ice Storm. Back then, few Japanese were focused on where these 8- to 12-year-old rink rats might be in 10 years' time. Nevertheless, since 1994, the JSF has quietly poured money into the camp, nurturing promising skaters and helping them find everything from the best overseas training facilities to the perfect coach and choreographer.

Now, after a decade of patient investment, Project Ice Storm has yielded a bumper crop of women skaters who look set to dazzle in Torino. Although Japanese ice queens have often competed among the top figure-skating ranks—think 1992 Olympic silver medalist Midori Ito or 1994 world champion Yuka Sato—the country has never fielded a team as deep as the 2006 Olympic squad. The battle for places on the three-person team was almost as intense as the Olympics themselves. The bronze medalist at December's Grand Prix final, one of the most competitive global events, didn't make the team; nor did the silver medalist at the 2005 Four Continents, another internationally prestigious contest. Instead, the Torino trio includes world No. 3 Shizuka Arakawa, the 2004 world champion and alumna of the '94 JSF camp; teenage sensation Miki Ando, another camp alum, whose gravity-defying quadruple Salchow has helped make her No. 2 in the world; and national-title holder Fumie Suguri, who placed fifth at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. "We are producing such talented skaters that any of them can make it to the podium at international competitions," says Junko Yaginuma, a Tokyo-based skating commentator and former Olympian.

But, for once, the focus in figure skating is as much on the perilous state of the sport itself as on the brilliance of the skaters poised to delight us with their grace and athleticism. A scoring controversy during the pairs competition at the 2002 Games laid bare a sport that—gasp, shock—was rife with rigged voting and fickle judges. The implication that figure skating boasted all the spontaneity of a World Wrestling Federation smackdown forced the sport's governing body, the International Skating Union, to scrap its old scoring system. Torino will be the first Olympic testing ground for the new rules, which require judges to more fully quantify the reasons for their scores. Instead of athletes starting with a perfect score of 6.0 and losing points for every aesthetic lapse or wobble, skaters now begin with a blank slate and accumulate points for each element of their routine. The new system favors a more technically rigorous and balanced form of skating in which athletes must not let artistry make up for, say, sloppy basic footwork. "It's no longer either jumping well or skating beautifully," says commentator Yaginuma. "Skaters have to fight on many fronts."

The Japanese team looks set to benefit from the revamped rules. Although the three women have vastly different skating styles—Arakawa tends toward balletic grace while Suguri ratchets up the drama and Ando revels in kinetic sizzle—the Japanese skaters are linked by their consistency and strong technical prowess. "All three have a good chance," says former Olympian Ito, who is amazed at how well the Olympic trio is adjusting to the new rules. "If I were to compete now, I don't think I could do it." At a disadvantage may be more artistic skaters such as America's 1998 Olympic silver medalist and five-time world champion Michelle Kwan. At her first competition without the 6.0s—the new scoring system debuted in 2004—Kwan finished fourth, the first time she failed to medal in a decade. Meanwhile, fellow American and two-time world silver medalist Sasha Cohen, whose flawless elegance makes her one of the most mesmerizing skaters to watch, has ping-ponged between U.S. coasts trying to find a coach who could raise her technical skills to the level needed under the new scoring rules. (Arakawa picked up one of Cohen's former coaches, Russia's Tatiana Tarasova, in 2004.)

The new scoring system has pushed other athletes to pursue even loftier heights. After battling a heart condition, Russia's rosy-cheeked Irina Slutskaya, who won a record seventh European title last month, has leveraged her experience into a formidable routine brimming with technical wizardry. Slutskaya, the world No. 1, lost in December's Grand Prix final to Japanese teenager Mao Asada. But 15-year-old phenom Asada, who last month became the first female to land two triple Axels in a free program, is too young to compete in Torino according to Olympic regulations. Meanwhile, 16-year-old American Kimmie Meissner—whom some expect to continue the pattern in the last two Olympics of young Americans beating older rivals to the gold—has compensated for her uninspiring artistry with big-time jumps like the triple Lutz-triple toe combination. "She got to see some of the Japanese skaters doing quad jumps and triple Axels, and it got her motivated," says Meissner's long-time coach Pam Gregory.

Despite the daunting international competition, which also includes home-team favorite Italian Carolina Kostner and Russian Yelena Sokolova, the Japanese women's stiffest competition may come from within its own squad. Willowy Arakawa—considered a skyscraper in the sport at 166 cm—had her breakout performance in 2004, when she became just the third Japanese to win the world championship. A child prodigy, Arakawa landed her first triple jump, a Salchow, by the time she'd wrapped up third grade. "She's one of the few skaters with all the qualities," says skating choreographer Nikolai Morozov. "She is very capable of winning gold." But Arakawa, 24, has struggled this past season, placing a disappointing ninth at the 2005 world championship and third at this year's nationals.

The national title went instead to 25-year-old Suguri, a late bloomer who didn't start skating seriously until middle school. Having spent her early years in Alaska because of her father's job as an airline pilot, Suguri began frequenting an ice rink in Japan as a way to remember her frosty years in America. Although Japanese skaters have a reputation for lacking expressiveness, Suguri's emotive routines shatter such stereotypes. "She is an actress," says Ito. "Her performance draws us into her world." Indeed, Suguri consciously elevates the importance of showmanship, explaining: "I'd like to entertain an audience better than other competitors." But there's also steel to Suguri's skates. A clutch performer, she coolly landed seven triples during her free program at the Japan championships to claim a come-from-behind victory.

The Japanese squad's only Olympic debutante is 18-year-old Ando, whose youthful enthusiasms still include a deep affection for Snoopy. Of the three Japanese, Ando has had the hardest time adjusting to the new scoring system. Although she has won two national titles with her explosive jumps, Ando needed to add more artistry to her repertoire. So last summer, she moved to Ohio to work with coach Carol Heiss Jenkins, a former American gold medalist. Ando is evolving from a pogo-stick leaper to a more passionate performer. "She's an emotional skater," says Heiss Jenkins. "It was already there, but it needed to be brought out." The big question in Torino will be whether Ando dares to unleash her famous quad—she's the first and only woman to have landed it in competition. Ando hasn't performed the move for some time on the circuit, and few skaters want to risk a major spill at the Olympics. But Heiss Jenkins says Ando has been landing the move more consistently during practice. If Ando does break out her four-turn cyclone in Torino, she may well blow away the rest of the field.

—Reported by Yuki Oda/Tokyo and Alice Park/New York

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